On The Bright Side I Get To Wear New Pants

It is not often that I leave Staples Center after a loss reasonably content. Bobby was livid, but that was truly all that bogus ‘calm’ he spoke of embodying coming back to bite him. He now knows better than to feign tranquility during a playoff series.

I am disappointed the Los Angeles Kings did not sweep, but last night’s 3-1 loss did not put the smallest of dents in my confidence that this team will find itself in the second round of the playoffs this year.

A part of me knew the Vancouver Canucks were likely to win one game and now that they have, the Kings can recommence their game of containing those Canadian pukes without the expectations and tepid overconfidence that a 3-0 series lead against a very good team brings.

It was an interesting game, one the Kings mostly played well. 35-40 minutes of solid hockey does not win playoff games though and the second period proved to be their undoing. Abnormal lazy play, being beaten to pucks, losing board battles, these are the things upon which the scales of fate hinge. Cory Schneider played a strong game, but not a remarkable one. His life was made much easier by the Kings’ trepidation in crashing his crease. This was part of the parcel of Vancouver playing by far their most disciplined game of the series. The Kings can easily undo that discipline, as it is but a shoddy veneer, ready to buckle at the next crushing hit, the next stick in their goalie’s pads a hair after the whistle has blown. The Kings did not do these things last night and so the mental and physical edge they possessed was momentarily lost. Despite strong play by several Kings, Jeff Carter and Brad Richardson stand out, lackluster performances by Mike Richards and Drew Doughty balanced what strength we had.

I have very little to gripe about. I want to see more offense from the defense. Slava Voynov and Alec Martinez have had little to no effect offensively. My eyes tell me that they are having to refocus on their defensive game and their natural instincts to score are a temporary casualty. Outside of that, the Kings just need to shake off that second period and get ready to put Daniel Sedin’s head through a pane of glass, something I am highly disappointed did not happen yesterday.

I wore the same pair of nice pants and shoes for the first 4 games. I finally get to wear some jeans. I wore my new Richards jersey for the last three. The Surly one is due for an appearance. The only real bummer about today is that we have to wait until Sunday. Timmy Love tells me this is because of a series of Coldplay shows in Vancouver. This is not an acceptable reason to delay a playoff game. I might to have riot on behalf of Vancouver.

Speaking of, there’s something amusing about seeing a handshake line in Vancouver, Canuck fans so sad they hardly have the will to set a single car on fire or throw so much as a temper tantrum. Leaving Staples last night, those in blue and white wore only cautionary smiles, their fear profuse.

I’ll be in Vancouver for game 5. I don’t have a line on tickets, but hopefully I’ll be inside that arena watching the handshakes and dodging molotovs when we crush them. If not I’ll be in a crowded bar screaming as loud as the the rest of them combined.

Whew. Glad to see you did not wind up in the ER with a stroke over the game’s outcome.
I am glad you appear to be very mellow now, but wanting and expecting much more good stuff for the next game.
We all got to be cool. Look at it this way, the Cansucks have to spend all this waiting time to Sunday figuring out if they get to play more hockey next week. It ought to be mental wear and tear on their pea size brains, worrying if they can in fact pull off miracles each minute they play on the ice. A slip up here and there, and the wheels come off of their bus and into the ditch.
To me, the Kings followed a game plan that was figured out over the couple of days before the game during practices. The attitude created by them was that: yeah we want to win, but, we are not going to go out there and threw the whole kitchen sink at the Cansucks, since that is what they tried to do to the Kings, and it backfired.
So, to me, the Kings had this plan to do 90% containment, flow disruption, nit pick here and there, try to do a counter attack here and there, and take pot luck on opportunities.
In reading the post game comments, they just seem to be down to earth, calm, and matter of fact that things did not work out as planned and the Cansucks got some plays to work with some decent goal tending to boot.

The Kings maybe wisely decided not to over spend themselves and keep some gas in the tank when they need to pull out the win they all no doubt want dearly to capture.

I felt the game could’ve gone either way…Quick let in 1 soft one (which I’m not mad about) and a bullshit, hockey-gods-fuck-us-raw-with-our-pants-down deflection that had eyes found the net …Kings had 1 taken away and Brownie misses the PS. …It was close.

As poorly as the Kings did in shootouts this year was there anyone surprised that Brown’s attempt was right to the pads. Once the shot was saved I turned to my son saying “and now we give up a PP goal”. That penalty shot was the biggest momentum swing in the game. I agree that the hitting was very light tonight from the boys and it must get back to game 1 and 2 standards if they are going to close them out in 5.
Go Kings!!!!!

The Kings need to turn the physical play back up. It felt like they backed off pretty significantly from the earlier games, in this regard. The CBC commentators had a lot of praise for the fourth line last night. While I agree they were the most aggressive line of the night and brought a lot of energy, they also took two stupid penalties. I don’t know what the hell Colin Fraser was doing with that tripping penalty well away from the play, and Jordan Nolan made a rookie mistake with that roughing penalty during a third period scrum.

I as well agree that Richardson played a very strong game, but Carter? I don’t think so. Doughty reverted to his shitty
Play for the first time in the playoffs. He sucked. Interesting that no one is commenting on the Sedins. As much as I despise them, Daniel’s return did give them a boost if only psychologically. Seeing those ginger turds sitting on the bench smiling made me want to puke. If we want to win this in 5 we have to bring the physical game up several notches and get back to the crisp passing and up tempo game that we played most of the first 3 games. Part of me wants the Kings to win it on home ice…but let’s save that for the next round…Let’s
not fuck around. Put these slime out of their misery up there. GO KINGS! FUCK THE CANUCKS!

See, I thought that Carter was skating hard and doing what he is supposed to do. To me the problem was that Richards was way down and King looked pretty bad. Carter isn’t a one man wrecking crew. He needs his linemates to be working really hard so that he can slide behind the defense and get open. When his linemates aren’t hounding the puck, he isn’t going to do much damage.

I want King off that line, replaced with Nolan or if he gets healthy, Clifford.

Absolutely man, King’s inexperience is being exploited by the canucks, he just doesn’t have that nose for the puck that a brown has or the big body presence that can control a puck down low like a Penner. I think interchanging Penner and king in game 5 would be a worthy experiment. Also, were you guys watching doughty last night? Every time he had the puck in the defensive zone he immediately threw it up the boards to the canucks d. For me it was painful to watch, we looked like the canucks did the first three game, endlessly tossing it to the half boards for a turnover. They can’t be sitting back in game 5, the reason the kings were so successful in the first 3 games was because they were pressuring the puck so hard all the canucks could do was panic and make risky passes that led to turnovers

Sunday seems so far away. I couldn’t see the game, but I was listening to it on the radio. From what i hear, Richardson was playing great! Maybe we should move him up with Carter and Richards and move king down?

I am very proud of this team. They have represented the team and us fans well so far. I wanted to say that first and foremost, but….

We did not play our game last night, not at all. Even when we were out played last game and parts of the 2nd game we stuck to what makes us sucessful….African Killer Bee aggression. We constantly move forward and attacked. Last night for some reason, we backed off. Almost to the degree of the dreaded “prevent” mentality. That’s why I’m somewhat upset today. We gave then way to much breathing room last night Next game I expect or suffocating team defense to reappear.

Was it me or were the Kings in slow-mo last night? Kopitar seemed to be in reverse a good portion of the game. I’m not picking on him, he just seemed to be laboring more than I’ve seen in awhile. Williams didn’t seem to have his legs, as well. Oh, well, can’t win them all.

The ENTIRE 4th line was outstanding last night. By far our most productive group. I would rather not take silly penalties but I’m giving them a pass on this one….they earned it in my book. I know the knuckleheads scored on the PP but you didn’t really think they were going 0-ffer did, you? I’m also not putting the blame on them because when your 4th line is the most dominate, you have other problems. But, we’ll fix that before next game.

I’m confident we will see our true Kings next game and that we’ll close it out in Canuck land. That would be much more fun, on their turf, right?

Isn’t anyone else a little worried?. We won the first 3 games and didn’t even out play them for 2 of those wins. I think the physical play of the kings was nulified by the aggresion of the Canucks. I watched the nucks last year and granted I was happy to see them lose, I see them starting to play that way again. We are up but need to finish this now!!!! Take it in Van or it may be trouble. That team is real good up there.

The game plan last night was too conservative and docile, thanks to Sutter and crew. So, now, the Kings ratchet up their game, to force play upon the Cansucks, to pressure, get some mistakes, turnovers and penalties going in their favor. At the end of the day, we do need for Richards, Carter and Williams to turn it up with some pucks in the net.
Game 5 plan—keep their backs to the wall and get them to cough up pucks and goals.

we unfortunately didn’t get to make history last night, which is depressing. however, winning the series in vancouver could be just as satisfying, for us at least. i’m glad to finally hear the analysts on the nhl network wake up and realize that there’s a team in l.a.

honorable mention: Not enough hard hitting (aka brown on sedin from game 3)
3. waived off goal (was the reason that the ref blew the whistle?)
2. Richards < Sedin (Richards was not a factor in this game)
1. Brown not burring the penalty shot (100% massive shift of momentum which resulted in Van scoring under 30 seconds later)

well I won't be wearing my clothes from game 3 and 4 to whichever game will be our next home game… No more black tux with silver shirt and tie…
back to the leather jacket!

To me the game changer was when van scored on that power play, stupid penalty by Fraser and a weird goal, but it got the momentum to swing Canucks way, and we never really took control after that, we had plenty of chances to score and Schneider did give up some primo rebounds but we just could not get to them and bury them. I think we actually had the better chances and if we finished them we would be waiting for STL to finish the sharks.
My biggest concern for the Kings is that we find ways to give up leads and end up losing games at home in
the playoffs for three straight yrs. I think this team has taken steps and can win this series but they have to play with more grit and do not let Canucks carry the play and for Petes sake we need to score more than 2 goals at home in two games! Would love to see what Richardson could do with Carter and Richards. Voynov and Martinez both need to step it up offensively and Doughty needs to play smarter and start making precision passes with the puck instead of just tossing it around the boards to no one.

Seeing Brown awarded a penalty shot while Canucks were on a power play made me immediately turn to the guy next to me and say “I think the rules should allow, when a team is on a penalty kill and is awarded a penalty shot, the coach should be able to decide on whether they want to take the penalty shot OR be granted the normal 2 minutes”. Your thoughts?